Several years ago, I had a colleague who intensely disliked me. She would ignore me or talk over me at meetings, make fun of me at lunch, and on one memorable occasion, she yelled at me for daring to make a suggestion about how to handle a situation. To this day, I’ve no idea why she disliked me; I was always polite and professional to her, and she never revealed the reason for her disgust at my existence.
And then one day, everything changed. I had heard about Random Acts of Kindness Day and decided I liked the idea of doing small favors for random people, so even when it wasn’t Random Acts of Kindness Day I would still sometimes commit random acts of kindness. On this particular day, as I drove up to the drive-thru window, I decided I would pay for the order of the person behind me. I didn’t know who the person was, I couldn’t see their face, and I didn’t recognize the car. I just asked the cashier how much their order was and paid for it.
Imagine my surprise when, after I’d arrived at work and gotten settled, a certain colleague came up to me and thanked me for buying her coffee. From that point on, she was a lot nicer to me, and we had a much better working relationship. It wasn’t my intention to make friends with her when I paid for her coffee, but that was the outcome nevertheless.
The Bible advocates for kindness in several contexts; one of those contexts involves your enemies. I didn’t quite understand why at first, aside from the Bible’s insistence that we love everyone, but after the incident I related, I came to a better understanding of exactly what impact kindness can have on other people. The transformation in how my colleague treated me before and after my small act of kindness was startling, and there is literally nothing else I can point to as an explanation for it.
Proverbs 25:21-22 might sound familiar to some readers of the Bible; I believe it is quoted in Romans 12: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; For you will heap burning coals on his head, And the Lord will reward you” (NASB). I had previously interpreted this to mean that receiving kindness from an enemy is its own sort of punishment, as they then owe something to someone they would probably prefer not to be in debt to. But Matthew Henry’s Commentary makes this excellent point: “It will be a likely means to win upon them, and bring them over to be reconciled to us; we shall mollify them as the refiner melts the metal in the crucible, not only by putting it over the fire, but by heaping coals of fire upon it.”1 So the actual intended imagery is that kindness softens an enemy, as fire softens and melts metal. Given how my colleague’s demeanor changed towards me, that certainly seems to be true.
There are also a lot of passages about kindness to the less fortunate, including several proverbs. However, the passage I want to highlight in this post is actually found in Matthew 25:
“‘Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life’” (v. 34-46, ESV).
Salvation does not depend upon our works, it is through faith (i.e. Ephesians 2:8-9), but it is a mistake to think that our works have nothing to do with salvation. James 2 does an excellent job of explaining this:
“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead… Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (v. 14-17, 20-26, ESV).
Faith and works are entwined; true faith involves showing kindness to others. I have met far too many Christians who seem to feel that their words and actions do not matter, that they can say and do whatever they want, that they can treat others however they want, without consequences. Some even use their faith to justify their various unkindnesses. Such behavior is contrary to what Scripture mandates. I’ll leave you with one last Bible verse: ““So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12, ESV).
To learn more about Random Acts of Kindness Day (February 17, 2026), visit https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/rak-week.
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